


vagary

by redketchup



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Gen, M/M, Superpowers, this thing is a mess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 01:39:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10205978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redketchup/pseuds/redketchup
Summary: Neil’s a first-generation shifter. He can change his appearance over and over again to try to mask the ghost that is Nathaniel Wesninski.Only problem is that the Foxes make that difficult to do.(Work abandonded).





	

**Author's Note:**

> okay, so yikes. This is a train wreck. In any case, this story was sparked from Fluffyish's superpower post. It was such a cool idea and well thought-out so.

He’s thirteen when he realizes he doesn’t remember what he looks like.  
  
Thirteen is a horrible age for many boys, with voices cracking and hair growing and urges _urging_. He’s no different, as one morning his chin is prickly with scruff, the next day he finds his shoes no longer fit.

So he adapts, focuses on curling his toes or shrinking his feet, depending on his energy. He starts checking his face several times a day, looking for a sprout of hair that he’s _sure_ will come back at any second.

His mother, seeing the signs of puberty, sits him down, makes him understand every textbook fact of sexual education, and tells him, “You need to deal with it, need to remember that it’s no excuse for any mistakes.”

She doesn’t say more on the subject, so he lets it drop.

Except it isn’t until thirteen, sleeping on a mattress in a flat in Nice, France, that he realizes he doesn’t remember what he looks like.

It’s not until the quiet hiss of his mother’s voice, the press of her fingers on his arm, him jolting out of his sleep, and her saying, “ _Alex_.”

Heart pounding, he swallows. “Qu’est que c’est?”

_What is it?_

(He means, _Who is it?_ )

Under his pillow is the weight of a knife, resting beside the cold metal of her semi-automatic pistol.

“Stay still,” she says, in English, and so he does. “No one’s here.”

His breast thrums, a cool sweat along the back of his neck. He doesn’t say anything, waits for his mother, waiting to follow her lead. He’s still flat on his back, her crouched above him, hand pressed into his pillow.

But instead of ordering him to grab his duffel, to drag his shoes on and start running, she tells him, “Change back. Now.”

He doesn’t understand.

Her fingernails bite into his skin. “ _Abram_.”

Alex blinks, shaken by the slip.

Alex’s middle name is not Abram.

Alex is a young girl, recently moved to a westward neighborhood of Nice with her mother. She is plain, quiet. She is not a boy.

“Shift back,” Mary Hatford says, _orders_. “Alex, shift back.”

Laying beside Mary is a gangly thirteen-year-old boy with blue eyes and russet hair. He blinks muzzily, gaze slow as it drifts down to the shirt that’s too tight around his shoulders, too flat as it presses against his chest.

“Oh,” Alex says, breath stuttering.

Another moment, and then his bones tug, skin stretches. Blue eyes darken to mud-brown, tufts of auburn lengthen into a mid-back length. His hair blackens. The shirt collar loosens around a thin neck, his chest protrudes slightly on either side of his sternum.

The thirteen-year-old boy disappears. A  fifteen-year-old girl takes his place.

She lets her limbs still, and then she drops her eyes to the floor. “I’m sorry,” she says, voice not cracked like a boy’s.

Mary is not pleased, it’s obvious by the thin line that’s her mouth. “Go to sleep.”

It means there will be a discussion to face in the morning, probably more physical than verbal, but Alex rolls to her side anyway, feeling Mary wrap an arm around her waist as they both settle into the mattress again.

Alex closes her - _his_ \- eyes, but doesn’t sleep at all.

It seems he hasn’t forgotten what he looked like after all, simply tried not to remember.

* * *

He’s a first-generation shifter. He can change his appearance over and over again to try to mask the ghost that is Nathaniel Wesninski.

Stefan had a narrow nose and wide mouth. Chris was freckled and tan like his mother. Alex was a pale girl with a simple face.

Occasionally his name is the only thing that changes, and it’s his face that stays the same. After all, the trick to shape-shifting is that he can only be people he’s seen before, not someone he has made up. The most he can imagine is a brown-eyed, brown-haired version of himself.

His mother’s a second-generation telepath, inherited after his grandmother. It isn’t strong, the most she can hear are particularly loud or persistent thoughts, which is probably for the best. People don’t think like they do in the movies, it’s too jumbled for that.

Either way, it’s enough for her to pick up on his guilt after kissing a Quebec girl, enough to hear his longing when he happens upon an exy article.

Enough to leave bruises on ribs for when he’s being stupid, to hear the armed gunman in the hotel stairwell.

(Enough for Seattle, enough through Oregon, but not for California. She doesn’t make it past California. She wasn’t enough to survive Nathaniel’s father.)

* * *

He can’t manage changing after that, the ability weak and useless. The most he can manage is brown eyes and brown hair.

Millport, Arizona is dusty and on the edge of the world. Neil Josten is simply another brown-eyed, brown-haired kid to fit right in at the school.

* * *

_Don’t stop, don’t trust anyone_ , she says. _Don’t make any rash decisions._  

The words rattle around his head, around and around and around until he can’t hear his own thoughts anymore.

* * *

He always debates heading east, stopping in Dallas, where there’s gentrification happening in full swing and more than enough homeless shelters to blend in at.

Instead he joins the school’s exy team, and hates himself every part of the way. He memorizes Millport’s streets and bus schedules. He adjusts to standing still.

Spring is in full swing by the time the exy season nears its end. March is climbing into a heat wave that has his shirts drenched after every morning run. _Too hot_ , the gas station cashier says, shaking her head. _Global warming_ , she says.

Neil always smiles politely, paying for his water bottle before heading away back to the empty house he’s squatting in.

* * *

At night he stares into a mirror and tries to be the president of the United States. He tries to be the woman he saw jogging across the street the other day. He tries to be Hernandez.

Nothing changes except his brown eyes to blue, and he almost breaks the mirror with how quickly he pushes himself away from it.

* * *

His days start piling up, and the itch to run is dull but ever present. He’s never been so torn between two things before - survival and exhaustion.

Exy is good, exy helps him pass the time. It feels good, and it’s _harmless._ No one remembers Millport High. They lose their fair share of games, have only a few decent players, and Neil is nothing to rave about.  
  
Hernandez begs to differ, always zeroing in on Neil after practices and games as he perches on the locker room bench, waiting for everyone to leave the showers for his turn.

The season crawls closer to an end, and Hernandez’s lingering has grown. He pokes and prods the subject on Neil’s parents as much as he can without blatantly scaring Neil off. It’s obvious he’s dealt with kids similar to Neil before, just not enough to know what to properly do.

One afternoon, as Neil is routinely ignoring Hernandez’s stare, Coach says, “Neil, come into my office for a moment.”

Neil does not want to go into his office. He stands up and goes anyway.  
  
Hernandez knows Neil well enough by this point that he doesn’t comment when Neil doesn’t take a seat but instead stands against the closed door. There is a file open on the desk in the center of the room, with a roster of the team players. Neil narrows his eyes, seeing a name highlighted in the middle of the roster with a phone number written in pen beneath it. Hernandez leans against his desk, blocking the view before Neil can make anything out.

“Were your parents here this time?” Hernandez asks.

“Had to stay late at work,” Neil says, focus still on the file, shrugging.

“Did they know you were playing tonight?”

Neil shrugs.

Hernandez’s face pinches. “I’d love to meet them sometime. You have real talent, y’know. Any parent would be proud to watch you.”

Neil shrugs, _again_ , swallows at the same time so the bobbing of his throat is missed in the motion.

Hernandez opens his mouth, ready to keep prying, but he seems to understand that Neil is as unmoving as he is persistent, so he sighs instead.

“Go shower up. I’ll see you tomorrow, Neil.”

Neil nods, turning to go.

Everyone slowly trickles out, bidding their goodbyes and the older kids offering rides with the use of their brand new licenses. Neil is dressed, hair wet and walking back from the showers, when Hernandez goes to follow some of the players out. Off to talk to the parents picking up his players.

Their season ends in a few days, with the last game being on a Friday. Some mom wants to have an after-party at her place, some dad wants to bring the pizza. Hernandez promises to make an appearance.

Neil has no interest in going, and everyone has no expectations for him to arrive. He has dutifully avoided and made excuses for every other team bonding so far.

Picking up his duffel and slinging it over his shoulder, Neil goes to leave, passing Hernandez’s open door.

He stops, remembering the file he saw earlier.

Thing is, it isn’t something he should care about. It is scouting season, and some of the small universities are willing to offer a scholarship to players that’ll represent their tiny schools. Millport isn’t Edgar Allen or Division I material, and Neil remembers something about Troy asking Hernandez to contact Prescott College.

But Troy’s last name is Wills, at the bottom of the roster. The Millport Dingos have fourteen players, and Neil’s seen the roster tons of times. Josten always lands in the middle of the list.

Hernandez has been pressing for Neil’s plans for after high school, too.

Neil swallows, staring at the manila folder. He glances down the hall, seeing no one, and looks back into the office.

An exy scout for Neil Josten.

Something like shame burns inside Neil’s chest at the brief excitement flaring at the thought. Neil Josten is nobody who is not going to college. He is not an exy star.

He walks into the office and looks at the highlighted name.

_Josten, Neil - Striker. #12_

There’s a ten digit number beneath his name.

Looking out the door to make sure no one is coming back, Neil picks up the office phone on the desk. He dials the number.

Each ring is too long, with Neil watching the hall anxiously. He debates hanging up, but then a voice cuts through.

“David Wymack,” a prerecorded voice, gruff and coarse, says. “Can’t talk. Leave a message.”

Neil puts the receiver back in place, he steps around the desk. He walks out into the hall and out the locker room’s backdoor.

He books it out of there before the door clicks shut.

* * *

He paces the abandoned house, picking up his duffel bag and making it to the front door, then dropping it in the corner and walking away.

To the door, picks up the bag. Drops it, walks away. To the door, back inside. Hands running through his hair again and again and again and _again_.

And then -

His hands freeze on the umpteenth time through his hair, fingers scratching along his scalp. There is no longer the feeling of brown tufts between his fingers, there’s no feeling of anything but skin.

He walks, legs trembling, to the mirror he practices shifting in front of. Neil fixes his eyes on his sneakers first, unable to drag his eyes upwards to his face’s reflection.

It’s minutes before he does, heart climbing up his throat.

Neil Josten, brown-haired and brown-eyed is no longer there.

Evan Hansen, the boy with the buzzcut that Neil was three years ago, gapes at his reflection. His fingers tremble, Adam’s apple bobbing in silent gasps.

“Change back,” Evan says aloud. “Change back.”

Neil does not reappear.

He focuses, clenches his fists. Scrapes his nails along his arms, borderline hyperventilating and hoping he can scrape Evan’s skin off.

Neil’s never lost control of his shifting like this before.

He clamps his eyes shut, squeezing them until static fills his head.

 _Change back_ , his mother’s ghost snaps, always haunting him. _Shift back._

When his eyes open, Neil Josten is back, brown-eyed and brown-haired and body shaking.

He decides to leave.

* * *

He reaches Phoenix later that night.

At the bus station he waits by the bathrooms, trying to find the right person to do the thing he needs done. If he gets the wrong person it’ll end with security being called.

It takes forty minutes, but eventually he pays a man to go purchase a last-minute fare at the ticket booth.

“A ticket? For anywhere?” The man holds the money Neil gave him like Neil’s an idiot.

“In the United States. No Mexico. Not going west.” Neil raises his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me where it is when you give it to me. Got it?”

The man waves him off, face twisting in annoyance. “Yeah, yeah. I got it. Hold your goddamn horses.”

Neil watches him walk away, going to the counter to buy the ticket.

The first rule for people like Neil - don’t make any conscious decisions that can be tracked by a Watcher.

His father didn’t keep many Watchers close to him, always found them useless whenever he was in the middle of his work. Watchers have to stop, collect their thoughts, and try to piece together the visions they’re getting. The future is never straight-forward, it’s not linear. It changes and shifts as quickly as possibilities come.

In essence, Watchers are too slow for a fight, and problematic for anything that isn’t strictly business.

Most of the people the Baltimore Butcher keep near him are physical abilities. Lola, Jackson, Romero. They’re far from being Watchers. That doesn’t mean he won’t bring one in if the situation calls for it.

In any case, his father’s in jail. Out of reach of any his people. Neil’s being cautious, that’s all. If someone else gets his ticket, picks his destination, then Neil is no longer in control of his future.

It is a small piece of control he’ll give to get away from Millport.

Neil’s shifting ability has gone to shit, he could be in the middle of class and morph into a fifteen-year-old girl, Bill Clinton, his _father_. He used to be able to use his shifting as easily as he could move his fingers.

Now it’s either never working, only managing the brown eyes and hair, or now it is shifting without his consent when he’s worked up.

He needs to get away before he slips.

To get away from Kevin Day.

“Excuse me,” someone says. “Have you seen a boy around by any chance?”

Neil’s head snaps towards the ticket counter. The man he paid is turned away from the clerk, facing another tall, dusty looking man.

Neil’s man glances Neil’s way, and the mystery man follows his gaze.

“Neil,” Hernandez says, tension bleeding out of his shoulders and face looking ten years older.

Neil can’t breathe.

Hernandez pats Neil’s man’s shoulder, saying something Neil can’t hear. The man looks between them, but he steps away from the counter anyway, walking off towards the idling buses in the parking lot. He takes all the money Neil gave with him.

Hernandez watches him go, then looks back at Neil. He stuffs his hands into his pockets.

“Hey, kid.” He takes slow steps towards him.

Neil’s lungs are filled with cotton.

Hernandez comes to a stop several feet away from him.

“How?” It’s all Neil can manage, voice choked.

Hernandez rubs his face, circles under his eyes. It’s late, Neil distantly remembers. Phoenix is a commute from Millport. Hernandez would have had to leave just a little while after Neil.

“Are you following me?” It’s the only thing that makes sense. Hernandez can’t be one of _them_. He can’t be.

Hernandez raises his hands, palms outwards. “Hey, hey, calm down. It’s okay. I don’t quite understand it myself, but I got a call from David Wymack. You looked at the file didn’t you?”

Neil has no words left, so he simply stares holes into Hernandez’s shirt.

“He says you called him.”

That.

That doesn’t make sense.

Neil blinks, lifting his head slowly to look Hernandez in the eyes. He called from the office phone.

“I called from your phone,” he says aloud.

Hernandez’s brow furrows. “I mean, I figured that. Never saw you use a cell phone before.”

It still doesn’t make sense.

Neil didn’t leave a message or anything. The caller ID would have been Hernandez’s. No one answered, Neil hung up.

“He says you two talked, and you told him you were scared about whether your parents would let you go ahead with this decision. He wants you to know he’ll talk to them for you.”

“What?” Neil’s lips are numb.

Hernandez is quiet for a moment, studying Neil, but then he crouches down so he’s looking up into Neil’s eyes. “Listen, Neil. You’re talented. I know why you stay around the locker room, I know your home life can’t be what you say it is. Don’t let this opportunity go.”

“When did he call you?” Neil asks abruptly, barely hearing himself speaking.

Blinking in confusion, Hernandez says, “Just about two hours ago.”

That’s roughly an hour after Neil made his decision to run.

He consciously _decided_ to leave. He never spoke with David Wymack, yet the coach of the team that Kevin Day is on somehow knew that Neil was running tonight.

Kevin Day isn’t a Watcher though, Neil remembers that much from being ten-years-old and meeting the thirteen-year-old. Precognition is not Kevin’s ability, he couldn’t have been the one to tip Wymack off.

There’s a Watcher at Palmetto, and they saw Neil’s decision to leave for whatever reason.

“Neil,” Hernandez says, and from the tone of his voice he’s been saying it for awhile. Neil blinks, looking back at the older man. “Come stay with me for a few days if you have to. Just let Wymack come watch you play. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but I figured this would be how you’d react.”

Neil swallows, throat too dry.

“Okay,” he manages. “Fine.”

**Author's Note:**

> next time: how Neil was found and what he plans to do about that


End file.
